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Fuel cell batteries might power clean cars of the future, but for now they are found in niche applications such as spacecraft, where cost is no object. "We are trying to figure out how you could build fuel cells that operate more simply and are cheaper to produce so that they would be acceptable in a consumer market," said Princeton professor of chemical engineering Jay Benziger.

Eighty five percent of the world's energy supply comes from burning fossil fuels, and this will most likely be the case for a few decades, according to assistant professor Yiguang Ju. In Princeton's mechanical and aerospace engineering department, Ju and Professors Frederick Dryer and Chung K. Law are making the best of that reality by studying the combustion of conventional and alternative fuels to harness their energy with maximum efficiency.